BURIN, WEST BANK, PALESTINE, January 21– A group of 30 Jewish fighters, mostly over the age of 70, as well as two members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP), showed antiracist solidarity with the Palestenian working class in the village of Burin. They helped plant new olive trees where old ones have been uprooted.
Immediately, a group of settlers, armed with clubs and a firebomb, attacked, all in the name of zionism. All forms of nationalism is a deadend ideaology for our class; we need Jewish-Muslim unity against racism.
The small Palestinian village of Burin, near Nablus, for several years has suffered many attacks by settlers from the nearby highly illegal Israeli far-right settlement, "Givat Ronen." - The settlers brutalize the locals and destroy their property and livelihood, including uprooting olive trees - a major crop raised by the Burin's hard-working residents.
The Israeli military, ever-present in the West Bank, never protects the villagers - but quickly protects the settlers if the villagers try to defend themselves.
This type of nationalist racism is not new to the international working class. Just as we see across capitalist borders around the world, bosses will claim rights to land in the name of profit even if it means turning a blind eye to this robbery or executing our class sisters and brothers. Only with communism, when we smash nations and borders will we be free of racist violence and murder.
Israel STILL guilty of racism
The entire event was recorded on video and was quickly on the news. While in racist Israel, attacks on Palestinian villagers usually go unnoticed, an attack on elderly Israeli peace activists does enter the news.
This caused a major political uproar in Israel, as even many Israeli liberals felt anger over the cowardly and savage attack. Many called on the government to remove the illegal "Givat Ronen" settlement, which overlooks Burin, and to arrest the settler thugs. Nothing has been done so far.
The Israeli police force, which has recently been exposed for spying on political dissidents, and regularly spies on Palestinians, could have easily located and arrested the fascist thugs. However, apart from an online outcry (rather than actions) from certain politicians, Israel's liberal "Government of Change" has done nothing to deal with these criminals and their - once again - highly illegal  settlement.
Liberals and cops will never defeat fascists, as liberalism and fascism are two sides of the same rotten coin, and as cops often are fascists themselves or at minimum complicit in protecting fascist controls. The only way forward is revolution by building an international communist party – PLP!
A good starting point would be to invite younger antiracists to political events, to train against fascist pogroms.
In the long run, we must build a revolutionary movement to smash capitalism and fascism with the only alternative: communism.

In the very readable The Disordered Cosmos, A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred (2021), author Chanda Prescod-Weinstein gives a wonderful introduction to the great questions of how the universe works. How does time work? Why are there so many different quarks that make up matter? What can dark matter be that prevents spiral galaxies from collapsing on themselves?
The book is an even greater history and analysis on the insidious effects that racism and sexism have on science under capitalism. The author’s mother is from the Caribbean, her father Jewish, and the author grew up in East Los Angeles. Following education at Harvard, she faced teachers and students along the way who openly declared her mentally incapable of majoring in particle physics. In a field dominated by white men from bourgeois and petty bourgeois backgrounds, Chanda, a non-white working-class woman, was told she could never be equal - a dismissal so many workers face under a capitalist education system that deems intellect as solely for a select few. Under communism, education will be rid of its elitist chains and knowledge will come from and be for the working-class.
Science is political
Physics is not “pure science” untouched by capitalism, but an embodiment of the individualist, racist and sexist social relations of capitalism. Under capitalism, the field of physics itself has long been stripped of its halo and ceased asking “the big questions” about the nature of the universe that Chanda honors with reverent awe. Under capitalism, physicists are reduced to wage-laborers of military research, developing ever more lethal weapons like drones and hyper-sonic missiles to massacre other workers in looming imperialist wars for profit. Irrespective of an individual scientist’s intentions, the sciences today serve only the imperialist system that the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is organizing internationally to smash.
Chanda is relentless in exposing the racist and sexist practices that have rippled through the history of scientific discovery. She constantly exposes the rapacious capitalist imperialist system that has ravaged the lives of workers, especially Black, Latin, and women workers, all over the world. She makes several sharp points like: “If Black people are invisible, how come the police are so good at shooting our friends and family…The starting point might be to avoid looking at the differences between people, and instead focus on the system that implies extreme differences.”
Chanda punctuates her analyses with her love and thirst for studying the wonders of the universe. And it is amazing and dazzling! The observable universe has no center! Space and time are inseparable from one another, and “spacetime” itself is curved! However, the joy of these advances is lessened by how many workers are shut out from learning about the world. “We lose people because too often there aren’t enough victories and moments of joy and fun for those of us who are from communities that history kicked to the cotton fields, trails of tears, unsafe street corners, prisons, and death at the hands of state actors and vigilantes. It is hard to see the wonders of the universe through the social crud.”
Political struggle is scientific
Chanda correctly blames the structural racism within capitalism for the poverty that oppresses so many Black people, refugees, single mothers, children and trans workers. Chanda states we should be able “to see the night sky and be inspired by the universe as it really is. It should be a human right, not a luxury for the chosen few.” She also writes, “People need to know that we live in a universe that is bigger than the bad things that are happening to us.”
Chanda says in her professional life she is afraid of what would happen if she really spoke her mind. That is why we need a Party like PLP, that unites the working-class. You cannot beat the bosses individually. The Disordered Cosmos lucidly attacks the capitalist system all the way through, so it was a disappointment to see on the last page her call for “peace” three times in the last paragraph as her final stand.
Chanda, and all workers, must subscribe to CHALLENGE and organize our efforts scientifically using dialectical materialism (see page 3) to demolish capitalism and set up a communist system in which everyone can strive to reach their full potential. The Disordered Cosmos is a good introduction for workers to the “big questions” of both political struggle and the nature of the universe itself, and a rich text for Party study groups on dialectical materialism.

Long-time Progressive Labor Party (PLP) member Larry Cutler died on January 6, 2022 at the age of 89. He was a welfare worker who joined PLP inspired by his experiences in the 1967 New York City welfare workers strike. He helped build multiracial unity between welfare workers and welfare recipients at the Bushwick welfare office.  
He understood that only communism could bring workers together worldwide to build an egalitarian world without racism or sexism. To that end he invited many workers to PLP activities and distributed CHALLENGE to many more.
A terrific baseball player
Larry was a terrific baseball player. He excelled at Taft High School in the Bronx and later at City College. After graduating from college, Larry played professionally for the Chicago White Sox and Pittsburgh Pirate minor league teams. In sports he was extremely competitive. An all-star in the minors, he was enshrined in the City College of New York sports hall of fame. He continued playing ball until he was in his early 40s. He was the second baseman for our office softball team. He was an all-star in the welfare workers’ league. When Larry retired years later, a player from another office spoke at the retirement party saying in part he had never seen anyone turn a double play like Larry.
A terrific communist organizer
Larry brought his same fire and energy to his activities in PLP. When the Party asked all of us to sell more copies of CHALLENGE, Larry was among those who sold the most. When we were asked to produce “shop” papers, he had one ready almost every week. He did this by having a daily plan of where and when he would sell the paper and how to get the shop paper done.
Larry brought scores of workers to Party events—May Day Marches, Workers Action Movement and International Committee Against Racism meetings and other gatherings. He believed in building a mass party and that meant inviting many workers to participate in a variety of Party activities. After he retired, Larry placed our Party newspaper, CHALLENGE, on newsstands, in bodegas, laundromats etc, all around NYC. He carried out these plans to the best of his ability.
He is survived by his wife Darlene, sons Davey and Tony, his grandchildren and ex-wife Gloria. He is remembered by countless coworkers, friends, and comrades.
Larry had both the strengths and weaknesses we all have. He had the desire to do what was needed to build the Progressive Labor Party. We say that it’s what you do that counts; on that score, Larry did a lot.

 Sunday, January 30, 2022

1 PM—2:30 PM ET

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Click here to read about his memoir!